The Crow:Retribution
by Punk Rock Hippie
Summary: Alex and Gail are just married when they are killed by two armed robbers.
1. Chapter 1

The Crow:

Retribution

Part One: The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Raindrops softly fell upon the cold streets of Los Angeles as the midnight showing let out of the theater. The occupants quickly filled into teh street, some with umbrella's, some in raincoats, and yet others only hurridly ran in pursuit of their car.

Two of the theater's former occupants however chose to walk among the moon lit streets with no umbrella or raincoats, in pursuit of tHe gas station down the road on foot. The two figures, one male and the other female had been together for several years. At tewenty seven, the two were married just two weeks previous.

As thehy walked the empting street the male figure, Alex, placed his jacket on the other newlywed who tried to protest.

"Alex," the woman named Gail said. "I'm fine...It's not that cold out, and either way I'm going to be wet."

"You won't be as wet though beautiful." he leaned in and kissed his bride gently on the lips. "And I assure you, you will be cold by the time we get home."

Gail felt bad taking the coat and leaving ALex in his black t-shirt in the rain. Trying to remove the coat, she was stopped by her husband who placed his arm around her.

"Babe, I'm fine."

Gail smiled staring up at his brown eyes with her green and placing her arm around his waist. "I love you Alex. I don't think that I tell you enough, but I do."

"As do I you babe. As do I..."

By now the two companions had traveld almlost two blocks of teh total five to the store. From there their apartment building was only another two blocks. Although it was rainy, the two were acustimed to walking home in the rain as they preferd to not drive. The more time spent on the walk, the more time they spent with eachother. They had both felt that way for the twn years they had been togetehr.

"I love you." Alex whisperd pulling her closer under his arm as they at last reached the gas station.

"I love you too." Gail replied and their lips brefily met once again. By the time they were within the store it was nearly one in the morning and both Alex with his long dark hair and Gail with her long blonde hair were soaked to the core.

As they entered the store the clerk nodded his head in recognition. Both Gail and Alex had met the clerk previously, Alex having knwon him through school and Gail through a mutual friend. As they enterd the store, Alex released his arm from around his wife and instead the two held hands. True to Alex's word, even with the coat Gail was by now freezing. The two went to the small dairy section and Gail started to shiver.

Alex grabbed a half gallon jug of chocolate milk and pulled away from the freezer. "Is that all we need?" he asked gently. Gail nodded and the two proceeded to the checkout counter.

Upon reaching the counter, two other men enterd the store, both of which wore leather jackets. Alex handed the clerk a handful of change and then told both he an dGail that he would be back. He turned from the counter and grabbed a cheap card from the small selection of birthday cards they carried. As he turned back toward the counter he heard one of the newer men bark an order at the cashier.

"Give me all the money you have in your register. Now!" Alex peered around the corner to see that Gail was also pinned up against the counter by the second man, a man with dark hair missing two teeth.

"You too little lady. Give me what money you have and we may let you live."

"I-I don't have any..." Gailprotested in truth.

"Well then, I guess you'll need to make payment in another way." The man pulled a knife from his jacket in addition to the gun the first man held on th eclerk and reached a hand out for Gail's arm. Gail let out a scream and dropped the chocolate milk, pouring it all over the floor. In an instant Alex was behind the man with the intent of disarming him.

"Leave her the hell alone!" he said knocking the man aside and reaching to grab the knife. The man brought his knife down once to meet resistance from Alex's right arm, trying a second time he overpowerd Alex enough to slash at hi sshoulder. The knife cut deep into the skin and Alex barely held in a scream og agony.

The only thought Alex could think of was that he had to save Gail. He threw himself forward ontop of his advisary and heard a gunshot go off on his left. The following events happened so quickly he almosyt wasn't sure in whioch order tehy took place. Gail screamed as the clerk slumped over backwards, most likely dead, and she began to sob. A second shot went off and Alex felt a sharp pain in his stomach followed by a burning sensation where the second bullet had made contact with him.

Alex's vision blurred as he fell to his knees and fought to maintain conciousness, he saw the glinty of metal and saw that Gail had tried to defend him. From his knees he reached for his assailant who had now pulled the knife on his wife but he had neither the speed or strength left in him. Gail let out a second scream and then her scream was replaced by the unmistakable sound of a fluid being gurgled.

This time is was Alex's turn to scream as Gail fell forward with her throat slit. He took the last bit of strength left in him and tried to get to his feet and overtake the assailants. Undoubtedly, he failed. Falling back to the ground, the last thing he rememberd was the warmth of an already soaked knife making its way through his neck. Alex reached out with his right hand for that of his companion, using all of his strength to crawl to her. He placed his hand on hers and then blackness.

Bright lights. Alex awoke with the light shining in his face in the middle of a clearing. He could see that he was in the woods in a high place. There was a rope bridge before him. He could see another person standing at the other side of the rope bridge, but the bridge was far too long for him to make out a face.

"Alex!" he could hear the figure yell. He knew the voice immediatly, knew that it was Gail. He rose to his feet and ran half of the bridge where he met with his bride who had done the same. He threw his arms around Gail, taking in the beauty that was his beautiful bride.

"I'msorry," he said, sorrow in his voice. "I tried to save you, but I couldn't. I was too late."

"No," Gail replied. "There was nothing you could have done. Nothing anybody could have done."

Alex leaned in and kissed her gently, taking in the feel of her lips on his for what seemed an eternity. "I love you." He whisperd when they were done and leaned in for a second kiss.

As he released his lips from hers this time, a bird called out from above. Looking up the two saw a crow glide down to land on the bridge's railing. The wind began to blow and Alex could feelGail being pulled away from it's force. "Gail!" he called out, unsure of why this was happening. "I love you!"

"I love you too!" she called back. "Forever and always will I wait."

The crow swept down upon Alex and he tried to duck before it hit him. The result was Alex toppeling over the railing head first into the mist below. He could hear Gail's words echoing in his head, and then he only saw black once again.


	2. Chapter 2

The Crow:Retribution

Part Two:

Alex awoke in what he thought to be his bed. As he moved, he found the same padding he was laying on top of to also be above him. He pushed at the ceiling of the box that he was in with all his strength but found that it wouldn't budge. The second time he pushed, a sorrowful scene flashed before his eyes.

He could see his friend Max, a gas station clerk as he was shot. He somehow knew that this had happened in the past and that for some reason his memory suppressed it. He could see two men in leather jackets, one who was missing at least two teeth. He heard as opposed to saw the second shot fired from the gun, the shot that sank into his stomach. He jerked as though the pain had re-entered his body. Lastly, he saw the murderers slit his beloved wife's throat.

With all this strength and anger he held, Alex threw both arms up through the box, leaving two holes where his arms had gone through. Dirt poured down from the holes clogging with time. He tore open another hole in the box and realized in horror that he lay in a coffin, most likely twelve feet under. Letting out a primal scream he tore into the box again, wood splinters and the coffin's inner quilting falling down in pieces. He did not know how he would get out of the ground, but he knew that he would. He would get out and extract revenge on those who had murdered his wife.

At the same time on the other end of Los Angeles, Ann Hillier awoke in her bed. Looking at her alarm clock she saw that it was almost one in the morning. It was almost a year to the day since her friend and his wife had been brutally murdered. He rubbed her brown eyes and sat up in bed. With a thought like that, she knew she wouldn't be able to get back to bed right away. She let out a sigh and started downstairs for a cup of coffee thinking sarcastically "That's just what I need...I'll be up for hours," but continued on.

She went down to the already made coffee from a few hours before. It was warm from the coffee pot, but tasted older then it was. She took one sip and nearly gagged and started another pot before pouring her cup out and taking a seat at the kitchen table. She looked down at the box she had been going through the previous day of old pictures and grabbed a handful of them.

She didn't care to relive the deaths she had in her lifetime, but at the same time she was moving and had decided on leaving half of the pictures here with her aunt and taking the other half with her to New York, where her boyfriend now lived. She wasn't sure how long it would be until she could send for the rest of her belongings however and decided it was important which pictures she take with her, if nothing else, just for something to decorate their new apartment's walls with.

Ann leafed through the pictures one by one passing pictures of herself as a child, pictures of her mother and cousins and aunts and uncles. Carefully she chose which pictures she would be taking with her placing them in a pile. She had decided that when she left for New York she wouldn't take even a full shoebox of pictures, and though uncertain what pictures she would take, she only planned on one large plastic sandwich bag full.

She passed the period of her life when she was a young girl and entered the next, pictures of her as a teenager and ultimately an adult. The coffee was done, so she poured herself a cup before continuing on through the pictures. She finally gave up at nearly two and decided she was just better off taking a shoebox full, tossing the pictures in her hand on top of the box. Luck would have it, the picture that landed on top was of her friend Alex's wedding. Just over a year ago, she had added the picture to the box after getting it developed and never looked at it again after he had been murdered. She missed him as she had many other people throughout her life, but he was like her brother and therefore it had made his passing worse. More then that, he had lived in the empty apartment across the hall with Gail, the absence of them making every day slightly painful.

This being said, her and her boyfriend Mark had decided to move to Buffalo, New York. Currently Mark was residing at an apartment on Ashland Ave. in Buffalo awaiting her arrival. Ann had hated the big city of LA her whole life, but now it was a sad thought to be leaving the city. a sad thought, but all the same an encouraging thought. She finished her cup of coffee and went back up to her empty bed to lay back down. Shutting the light off she fell asleep around two-thirty.

Around three o'clock, Ann was again awakened. This time she heard a thud in the apartment across the hall, or more so she thought she had. The apartment had been empty for a year now, and there was no reason anybody should be there. She rolled over and listened to the silence eventually deciding that it was only a dream on the anniversary of her friend's death. She began to drift off once again when there was another thud.

This time, Ann was sure she had heard a thud. She climbed from bed and went for the phone to call the landlord. She considered the police, but figured it would be best left to the landlord to decide as he only lived across the street. She had the phone in her hand when she heard a knock on her door. Unsure of whether or not to call the landlord, she put the phone back on the hook and proceeded downstairs again. There was a second knock as she went down the stairs, but she ignored it proceeding to the table with the pictures all sprawled out grabbing the cordless handset.

A third knock on the door also brought a familiar voice calling: "Ann, are you home?" Although she knew the voice to be familiar, she could not pinpoint who it was and called back "It's three in the morning....who are you?" There was no answer. She opened the door as much as the chain lock would allow and peered out at a dark figure that was covered in dirt.

"Ann...Please. Open the door..." Ann looked in astonishment at who she thought was at the door. But it couldn't be. Alex had died a year ago...been murdered down the street at a gas station. She slowly stepped back, unsure of what to do. The figure knocked again and called out "Ann...Please it's me." She took another step back and ran into the kitchen. She sat in a corner by herself and quietly wept. She was dreaming, she knew she had to be, but she couldn't help but cry.

The door finally opened on its own, the chain hanging down broken from the wall. The man who entered looked more like the ghost of a murdered man then the murdered man himself. The newspapers had reported that his throat was slit, he had been shot in the stomach and that he had been cut on the arm with a knife before he died. The Alex who stood before her had no wounds, no scars and was covered in dirt.

"Ann," he said gently. "Ann...It's Alex. I need your help. I can't remember what happened to me."

By now, Ann had had enough. Sitting in the corner of the kitchen, darkness took her as she passed out. She awoke the next morning in bed believing that she had imagined the previous night's events. She climbed from bed noticing the time was 9:56 and grabbed clothes from her dresser before going to take a shower. Undressing and climbing into the shower she noticed mud caked on the drain of the shower. Unsure where it came from and forgetting the previous nights dream she thought nothing of it and finished her shower after clearing the drain.

She put new clothes on and left the shower thinking of what she needed to do the rest of the day, organizing a list in her head of the easiest order in which to do it as she did so. She climbed down the stairs and fear struck her as her apartment door had come into sight. The lock was broken as it had been in her dream. She muffled a scream and looked around. There were a trail of dirty footprints that led from the door to the kitchen, where she had had her breakdown the previous night. With horror she realized that somebody had been in her apartment the night before. Whoever it was had also put her in bed last night when she had fallen asleep.

Entering the living room she found a man sitting at the table with all the photos sprawled out. The man was holding the wedding picture she had looked at the previous night. The man looked like the one in the photograph, every detail perfect. Ann was too scared beyond words to say anything to the figure. At last, with tears in his eyes, Alex looked up from the picture.

"I hope you don't mind that I used your shower. I was a bit dirty when I got here, I'll vacuum the floor too...I didn't want to wake you."

Unsure what to think, Ann backed away from her friend for the second time. "Don't come near me." she insisted looking into his cold, brown eyes. "Who are you?"

"Ann," Alex said quietly. "It's me.....Alex."

"You're sick. My friend Alex died a year ago. Why are you doing this?" She took another step toward the door as Alex grabbed his head as if he had been struck by an object.

Alex felt a sharp pain in his skull as Ann had said he had died a year ago. He couldn't have. He was here now, wasn't he? Hadn't he only been believed to be dead? It couldn't have been a year ago though. Ann must have been confused out of grief. He had witnessed the death of Gail and Max only a few days ago. Then he received another flash in his brain.

He could see the gas station once again, could feel the pain in his stomach and one in his shoulder. He could hear himself let out a scream and a moan but wasn't sure whether he had really let them out. He could see Gail and hear her gargling on her own blood after he throat was slit. The pain was too much for him, he tried to fight back against his assailants, tried to get revenge on them for what they had done to his bride. Then he felt the warmth of blood on his neck and the feel of metal as the already bloody knife found its way through his throat.

The two murderers fled as a siren sounded from down the street. Alex fought to stay alive, knowing that nothing could be down for him or his bride. Gail had already fallen to the ground, the blood continuing to flow from her throat. Alex crawled the best he could and gripped the hand of the only woman he ever loved and then darkness.

Alex let out a scream as tears poured down his face. He had lost her....he had died. Why then, why should he be here in Ann's living room? Why did he come back and not Gail?

"Ann," he pleaded. "Please believe me...I don't know what has happened. All I can remember is being shot, mine and Gail's throats being slit and grabbing her hand before I died. Please...please...believe me. I am who I say I am. I can't explain it."

Ann, having backed all the way to the door, shut the door, back pressed to it sliding down to a sitting position. "I still don't believe you. Tell me...what is my boyfriend's name?"

"I...I can't remember." Alex said straining to see her boyfriend in his head. At last he could see the other man in his mind's eye. The man was short and pudgy with short, dark hair. He had met the man several times over the years, but still could not come up with a name. "I can't recall." he said at last accepting defeat.

Ann kept her back to the door trying to understand. This man really seemed to be Alex. She could see that he was trying to remember Mark's name. How could this happen though? It went against everything she had ever been taught. Everything science stood for. The dead did not come back. The dead were just that, dead. At long last, she decided she did not know how, but this was Alex.

"I'm sorry," she said from her seat on the ground. "It's just so hard to believe. But how?"

"I don't know." Alex replied, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I couldn't remember dying until you mentioned it. I get these...almost like television scenes....in my head. My memories...I think. I can't tell what happened to me unless something triggers a memory. I woke up in a casket. I could barely remember where I lived. I went in and.....nothing of my life is left. I want to die. I should be dead."

"I helped clean your belongings out." Ann said sadly. After the police wrapped up in there the first few days, I put some of your important things in storage. I don't know why...I just felt like I was throwing you and Gail away. The rest were sold for the funeral, thrown away or buried with you."

Alex sighed. "Did the police ever find out who had murdered us?"

"Yes...but they weren't caught. They paid the police off after they carried out some major bank robbery and got away with it."

"I need names." Alex said coolly. "They killed the one thing in my life that I swore to protect. I will kill them." He reached out and grabbed a picture of he and Gail from a Halloween party a few years back. "Where did this come from?"

"Like I said...I saved some things. I added your pictures to mine. I hope you don't mind...."

"Keep 'em," Alex said. "After I kill them, I will be with Gail."


End file.
